Audio visual right society debuts

Over the years, the fight by creative content owners royalties has focused on the music industry. Now, attention is about to shift to movie industry. Before now, the movie industry focused on the fight against piracy and creating effective distribution pathways. The lack of legal framework to protect the rights of the creative artiste work limited the stakeholders and practitioners from optimising the various platforms they can earn revenue from, one of which is the royalty. It is no news that most creative works are being duplicated and overused by unauthorised bodies. However, a wind of change has hit the industry with the formation of an audio visual rights society. 

The Audio-Visual Rights Society (AVRS) is the new Collective Management Organisation (CMO) which will oversee the payment of royalties to the stakeholders and practitioners in the industry. Chaired by a prominent filmmaker and the former president of the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, the AVRS will oversee the collection and distribution of the royalties on behalf of the copyright owners. The CMO was a collective effort of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Nigerian Copyright Commission and the Nigeria Film Corporation(NFC) with the sole vision of protecting the rights of the creative works owners.

Speaking with journalists, Ali-Balogun emphasised the importance of having the CMO in the Nollywood industry. “A filmmaker may be too busy to monitor the progress of his works that are already in the market. Since he needs to get his royalties or other entitlements from consumers using those works, especially online, he will have to seek the assistance of an organisation like the AVRS to get the money accruing to him and to ensure that his copyrights are not tampered with.”

Presently, the CMO operates as a corporate entity until it gets its licence from the NCC.
While admitting that he has an onerous task ahead of him, Ali-Balogun assured the media that the CMO will achieve the feat nonetheless.  “It is not an easy task. The first step we are going to take is to enlighten the public, especially those who are unaware of the implication of copyright infringement. “

Though AVRS offers free registration to members, however it will only recognise two category of copyright owners. The first category comprises the financial owners of the production. Ali-Balogun elaborated that this category is exclusively for the producer who finances the production and not necessarily the owner of the creative content who is often credited as the producer of the movie. He described the second category as creative collaborators. “This includes the lead actors and supporting acts, the directors, scriptwriters and members of the technical crew.”

On the effective distribution of the royalty to members of the second category, Ali-Balogun gave the assurance that a suitable agreement will be reached by the CMO.

AVRS will only recognise registered individuals and not companies as members. This will not be automatic as the body will investigate if the interested individual is truly a copyright owner of the royalty received, 30 per cent will go to the coffers of the society for its administration while 70 per cent will go to the copyright owner.

One possible stumbling block that may hinder the smooth running of this society is how to track unauthorised use of copyright works. Ali-Balogun once again gave the assurance that measures are being taken to ensure that a good tracking system is in place.
He reiterated the importance of enlightening the public on the project because of the prevalent ignorance of copyright laws in the industry. “We may spend the first year enlightening the public. It is not something that we will shove down their throat. We will take our time to educate them on the process since some of them may not be aware that the digital satellite services they enjoy may put them at risk. Some may be scared of the fees but it is negotiable. There is room for negotiation depending on what terms we agree with them.”

Ali-Balogun also emphasised that the organisation will not hinder any agreement already made by copyright owners and digital satellite owners unless the terms of agreement has expired. He also highlighted a future plan to partner with some online distribution platforms in order to collect the entitlements of clients. Also, foreign productions which are aired freely on terrestrial platforms will also face the music as the AVRS comes on board.